Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Bayern Munich

Of course and that is perfectly acceptable. Having the temerity to call someone a straight up liar without any basis is out of order.

 

Now watch this get glossed over... Just like the no money cause of the stadium or ffp was an issue....

 

Many of us thought the stadium would give us a lift. That is totally different to the claim you made: "Many on this board strangely believed that the new stadium once opened would be the answer to all our woes".
Calling it a lie was probably harsh but it wasn't true, was it? None of your quotes remotely supports it. They were all made in the context of whether we should move to the new stadium for the last few matches of last season or stay at Wembley.
Everything seems so black and white to you. Everything we do has upsides and downsides...that is why being a football coach is so hard.

 

I didn't call you a liar. I said what you posted was a lie.

 

You quoted my post as an example of "some believing opening the new ground would solve all the problems like magic sprinkle dust"...my post says no such thing ... nor does it imply it...it simply says that I do not think staying at wembley was a good idea.
It aint a reasoned debate if you misrepresent things said to win a point with a third party . If you have a problem with something another poster has said then take it up with them with out misrepresentating what I wrote.

 

That caused my first smile in half a day

 

I thought playing in a wonderful brand new stadium would be a boost to our players that would attract new players,if we tried to get them. I still do.
I also believe we should be looking at players in lower leagues with a bit of skill but more heart that keep going until they drop.I'm sure there are two full backs in those leagues better than ours!
We do need a Modric type in midfield.But where? PSG has one but we probably couldn't afford him. They had mentioned Grealish early on but he is probably settled in with Villa now......so who?
I would like to see a hardassed assistant coach at Tottenham to do a bit of chasing...…..a bit of bad language too for the lazy types!

…….and.....how can a team of great players suddenly (well,maybe not suddenly!) go to pot like ours? ) Do they need to call in a trick cyclist to sort it out?

 

Absolutely right and the stadium will produce long term benefits, no doubt. Eventually the club will compete on a more level playing field with the super rich clubs, but that depends also on on field success - CL qualification especially.
Where I think things have gone slightly wrong is that Levy's hardball transfer tactics have backfired. The club has three or more players running down their contracts, whose commitment to the club is questionable and who should have been sold sooner when they would have commanded a decent transfer fee (even if for less than Levy might have ideally wanted).

 

That only makes sense if the fee was higher than the player’s value to the club. We could probably have got £150m for Eriksen, Vertonghen and Alderweireld at the beginning of last season but that would have been a poor result if we had dropped out of the top 4.

 

That may very well be true. Daniel Levy's got his talents but like all of us, he has his limitations. I think that he knows this and has been trying to recruit a DoF for a few years now.

Mauricio Pochettino doesn't want one and there we are...

Two stubborn men pulling in opposite directions. It hasn't helped them or the club. Things have to change eventually.

 

As I said elsewhere, our status makes it awkward to move players on

If a team like Man Utd or Chelsea have deadwood to move on, they accept they have to lower their wage demands as they won't be getting those same wages at whichever mid-table team they wind up at

When we have deadwood to move on, even though the drop in wages is considerably less than what the Man Utd/Chelsea player would have to take, they're reluctant to do so - case in point, Wanyama outright refusing to take a pay cut to join Brugge in the summer

 

It must be obvious that our entire back 4 are vulnerable to pace. Coman and Gnabry ripped our full backs to shreds, and when Gnabry cut inside our CB’s couldn’t handle his pace either.

 

One observation that somebody else has made is that THE BASTARD DIAMOND doesn't protect our full backs in the same way the 4231 did

When we played 4231 we had either Lamela or Sissoko covering whenever Walker/Trippier/Aurier went forward while Son covers the LB (although that was a weakness for a couple of seasons, as Chadli and Townsend never bothered) but THAT DIAMOND TWATSACK completely removes the wingers from the equation and puts extra pressure on Sissoko and Ndombele to cover, even though they're supposed to be the team's power plant going forward

There's a potential solution that's staring Poch in the face, namely play 433 instead of 4312 so we have wingers to cover for the fullbacks again - but returning to the 4231 makes so much more sense

 

I get what you’re saying, but the back 4 can’t be continually protected against a pacy attack.

Whatever system we’ve played over the last 9 months or so pace has always been a weak spot.

 

for all the tears and jeers it's an humiliating, but will probably ultimately prove to be a meaningless result, you'll still get 2nd and qualify.
Could be worse, you coulda been knocked out the cup completely by Oxford.

 

Don’t worry mate, we got done by Colchester instead

 

Pace can be mitigated to a degree by having two players dealing with the threat, case in point how we kept Jadon Sancho quiet for both legs against Dortmund last season - but when we lack both the wing cover and an out-and-out DMF, we're missing that extra level of cover for our fullbacks which in turn also leaves our centre backs at risk of being exposed

 

Mozart's team might be shipping at least 7 tonight at this rate

 

So not only do we hate it, it seems the players do too:

Speaking on French TV channel RMC sport on Tuesday night (via ESPN), Sissoko claimed that the midfield system could be one of the reasons for the collapse.

“We get tired too quickly physically when we play with a diamond midfield," he admitted.

 

They've pulled 2 goals back!